There is also a shadow side to desire; this is greed or addiction. When desire becomes blind to presence and becomes driven to have more and more, we have greed. It is as though some lonely infinite sleeps within desire, and when it comes awake it can destroy everything in its singular wish to possess. All perspective is lost, and vision is reduced to destructive ideology. This blind greed is at the heart of our environmental crisis.
In terms of its creative side, desire is the quickening of heart that calls forth change. Somehow the eye of desire can glimpse possibility where the overfamiliarized mind cannot see it. Once it glimpses this, desire cultivates dissatisfaction in the heart with what is, and kindles an impatience for that which has not yet emerged. Our dreams and fantasies showcase the directions in which our desire would love to lead us. Dreams are narratives of desire. We can learn the forms of longing within us, if we attend to our dreaming. There should always be a healthy tension between the life we have settled for and the desires that still call us. In this sense our desires are the messengers of our unlived life, calling us to attention and action while we still have time here to explore fields where the treasure dwells! FOR EROS
When you love,
May you feel the joy
Of your heart coming alive
As your lover’s gaze
Lands on your eyes,
Holding them,
Like the weight of a kiss,
Deepening.
May the words of love
Reach you and fluster
Your held self,
The way a silhouette of breeze
Excites a meadow.
When you are touched,
May it be the gentleness
You desire,
Your lover’s hands sending
Each caress deep into your skin
Like a discovering glance.
May slow sequences
Of kisses discover
Your secret echoes.
May your desire flow free
And never be fettered
By the thorn-chains
Of old guilt
Or crippled touch.
May you feel
How your soul loves
When your skin glows,
And your eyes darken
When promise ripens.
In the gaze of your lover,
May you see clearer
In the mirror
Of your own being.
May the silences
Be spaces where you
Can gather swiftly,
At ease with all
The subtle complexity.
May you be able to listen
To your lover’s heartbeat
And think only of the joy
You can awaken.
May you be able
To let yourself fall
Into the ocean rhythm,
Unfolding ever more
Until you become
One crest of wave,
Rising into wild foam
Whose beauty will show
In the graceful sweep
Of its home-breaking.
FOR FREEDOM
As a bird soars high
In the free holding of the wind,
Clear of the certainty of ground,
Opening the imagination of wings
Into the grace of emptiness
To fulfill new voyagings,
May your life awaken
To the call of its freedom.
As the ocean absolves itself
Of the expectation of land,
Approaching only
In the form of waves
That fill and pleat and fall
With such gradual elegance
As to make of the limit
A sonorous threshold
Whose music echoes back along
The give and strain of memory,
Thus may your heart know the patience
That can draw infinity from limitation.
As the embrace of the earth
Welcomes all we call death,
Taking deep into itself
The tight solitude of a seed,
Allowing it time
To shed the grip of former form
And give way to a deeper generosity
That will one day send it forth,
A tree into springtime,
May all that holds you
Fall from its hungry ledge
Into the fecund surge of your heart.
FOR LOVE IN A TIME OF CONFLICT
When the gentleness between you hardens
And you fall out of your belonging with each other,
May the depths you have reached hold you still.
When no true word can be said, or heard,
And you mirror each other in the script of hurt,
When even the silence has become raw and torn,
May you hear again an echo of your first music.
When the weave of affection starts to unravel
And anger begins to sear the ground between you,
Before this weather of grief invites
The black seed of bitterness to find root,
May your souls come to kiss.
Now is the time for one of you to be gracious,
To allow a kindness beyond thought and hurt,
Reach out with sure hands
To take the chalice of your love,
And carry it carefully through this echoless waste
Until this winter pilgrimage leads you
Toward the gateway to spring.
A BLESSING OF ANGELS
May the Angels in their beauty bless you.
May they turn toward you streams of blessing.
May the Angel of Awakening stir your heart
To come alive to the eternal within you,
To all the invitations that quietly surround you.
May the Angel of Healing turn your wounds
Into sources of refreshment.
May the Angel of the Imagination enable you
To stand on the true thresholds,
At ease with your ambivalence
And drawn in new directions
Through the glow of your contradictions.
May the Angel of Compassion open your eyes
To the unseen suffering around you.
May the Angel of Wildness disturb the places
Where your life is domesticated and safe,
Take you to the territories of true otherness
Where all that is awkward in you
Can fall into its own rhythm.
May the Angel of Eros introduce you
To the beauty of your senses
To celebrate your inheritance
As a temple of the holy spirit.
May the Angel of Justice disturb you
To take the side of the poor and the wronged.
May the Angel of Encouragement confirm you
In worth and self-respect,
That you may live with the dignity
That presides in your soul.
May the Angel of Death arrive only
When your life is complete
And you have brought every given gift
To the threshold where its infinity can shine.
May all the Angels be your sheltering
And joyful guardians.
FOR LONGING
Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
May the forms of your belonging—in love, creativity, and friendship—